1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image-taking device configured to focus an object image on an image pickup device by use of an image-taking optical system and to generate an image signal for a recording purpose in response to a shooting instruction.
2. Background of the Related Art
Image-taking devices such as digital cameras or video cameras including shake correcting sections for correcting shakes at the time of shooting images have heretofore been diffused. A shake correcting section for instance includes a lens member (a shift lens) disposed in the way of a light path of light from an object which is incident on an image pickup device, and an angular rate sensor such as a vibration gyro-sensor. An image-taking device including this shake correcting section is configured to correct shakes at the time of shooting images by moving the shift lens within a given moving range and thereby displacing an optical axis so as to correct a shake detected by the angular rate sensor.
As an example of the image-taking devices, there is disclosed a video camera which is capable of achieving the most suitable panning characteristic constantly by identifying whether the video camera used for shooting is held in hands, mounted on a vehicle or fixed on a tripod and modifying a limitation characteristic for limiting a shake correcting operation accordingly (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-39640).
Meanwhile, there is also disclosed a digital camera configured to perform highly accurate shake correction by judging whether a user is shooting an image through a viewfinder by use of an eyepiece detecting section and switching shake correction characteristics accordingly (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-159051).
In these image-taking devices, the shift lens has a limitation in terms of the moving range for correcting shakes. Here, a large shake may occur and such a shake may exceed the moving range. When an image is shot in this state, a photograph thus taken will be quite blurry.
There is also a limitation in terms of response of a driving section including the shift lens. For this reason, when shakes occur frequently, such a mechanism may fail to follow the shakes. When an image is shot in this state, a photograph thus taken will be also blurry.
As described above, a conventional image-taking device may include the shake correcting section but may still cause a blurry photograph when an image is shot at the time of a large shake or in the course of frequent shakes. Accordingly, such a conventional image-taking device has a problem in making effective use of the shake correcting section.